Update: Turkish minister

As I reported recently, Turkish foreign minister Çavuşoğlu wants to hold a pro-Erdoğan in Rotterdam next Saturday. The Dutch government, and in fact all Dutch political parties except for DENK, think that’s a bad idea.

Yesterday, the owner of the venue where Çavuşoğlu was to speak cancelled the rally. Rotterdam mayor Aboutaleb confirmed this in a letter, and added that if that hadn’t happened he’d probably have cancelled the rally himself, mostly due to concerns over public order, and also because he fears increasing escalation.

Today, Çavuşoğlu stated he would visit the Netherlands “shortly,” and that he wasn’t about to allow anyone to stop him. It’s not entirely clear when this is supposed to happen, but next Saturday still appears to be an option.

Similar rallies in Germany have been cancelled by various local authorities as well.

It’s unclear whether this will have any influence on the elections, but better safe than sorry. The fact that the Turkish government is unwilling to postpone this rally to after the Dutch elections, shows it’s not acting in good faith.

This is the political blog of Peter-Paul Koch, mobile platform strategist, consultant, and trainer,
in Amsterdam. It’s a hobby blog where he follows Dutch politics for the benefit of those twelve
foreigners that are interested in such matters, as well as his Dutch readers.